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Over the last two months the Leveson enquiry has been collecting evidence on the phone hacking scandals and other alleged press abuses which invade privacy. The evidence is being collected with a view to making recommendations for a new, more effective policy and regulatory regime.
All this was fresh in my mind as I read the latest edition of New Internationalist in which Mabvuto Banda wrote about the struggles in Malawi for press freedom.
Banda wrote of the effect of a recently passed law, section 46 of the Penal code, by which the Minister of Information can outlaw any publication producing articles deemed to be ‘not in the public interest.’
Journalists in Malawi now fear for their jobs. Banda quotes Brian Ligomeka, managing editor for the country’s oldest newspaper – The Daily Times, who said: ‘At the stroke of a pen, a minister can make hundreds of us jobless.’
In reading, it became clear that the relationship between Malawian journalists and the government of President Bingu wa Mutharika has been tense for some time.
Banda writes of an event last November in which journalists had to seek protection from the police after Mutharika supporters went hunting for the press. They had angered the government by asking the president why he had gone on a secret holiday to Hong Kong at a time of serious economic crises for the country.
The act has directly contributed to the freeze on development funds from the European Union, Germany and Britain. This is disastrous for the country as the international donations constitute 40% of its international budget.
The story is an illustration of the power of the press. The Malawian government fear their influence so much that it is prepared to risk losing a significant chunk of their national budget in order to be able to control the media.
Whilst the conduct of many British journalists over the last few years has been disgraceful and has marred the reputation of the press as a whole, the story of Malawi highlights the danger of too much government control. This is a warning Leveson must heed and his job is certainly one that I do not envy. Yesterday Leveson said he “will not go as far as recommending state regulation”, nevertheless he will need to find a happy medium if freedom of press is to be protected.
...as Juvenal, a Roman poet, put it. In translation: who will guard the guards themselves. Or, in this context, if the state regulates the press, who will regulate the state?